


one last regret

by madamerenard



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-25
Updated: 2019-07-25
Packaged: 2020-07-19 12:27:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19974058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madamerenard/pseuds/madamerenard
Summary: If only things were different.





	one last regret

My dearest Varis,

Don’t tear this letter up. I can see your fingers twitching in rage, but I am not writing this to taunt you, or do any more of our little back-and-forth. Those days are over. In truth, you and I will not see each other again - a fact I am sure you are quite pleased to read. But before I take my last bow off this miserable stage, I wanted to speak to you, one last time. Call it nostalgia. Call it a last regret.

I know you hold no love for me. I know you know I raised you and your father as tools. I know you think me a monster wearing flesh, an evil hellsbent on destroying man. 

I know you like to pretend that I am not the same old man you knew growing up. That, like Elidibus taking Zenos’ corpse, a demon had been raised up in place of your grandfather. But Varis, it has always been me. Solus Galvus, the poor sod, died in his twenties when I took his body. I sired you. I raised you. 

You and your father were not the first. I have been alive for millennia, and over the years I’ve had many wives, many children. You’d think it’d get easier with time, to detach myself from them and manipulate them into the pawns I need them to be. It doesn’t. 

I always had such high hopes for you. And you delivered, faithfully. You rose to Emperor over the entire family when my mortal body perished. And then I was reawoken, and you grew that awful spite in your once warm golden eyes. I never saw you smile again.

Every time you turned your back, Varis, in hatred and disgust at what you saw, I felt a pang of heartbreak. And I had no right to, for I continued to goad you, to dig under your skin and see what I could unearth. But my heart - this stifling, bleeding thing - longed for a life where I could be free to dote on you. To be the grandfather you needed...the one you deserved. I know you don’t believe me, Varis, but I oft dreamed of different circumstances.

All immaterial, I know. I’m doubting what good is actually coming from writing this. Do I expect you to look at something horrible and forgive it? But at least I can die without thinking of the “what-ifs” with you.

Enclosed is the scarf you made for me as a boy. I kept it all these years.

With all the love in my festering, rotten heart,

~~_ S _ ~~

_~~ Eme ~~ _

_ Hades _

**Author's Note:**

> monkey brain: thancred and minfilia
> 
> galaxy brain: hades and varis


End file.
